Guy Chamberlin

I remain 100% more interested in Mike Riley's first season at Nebraska than Bo Pelini's eighth.

What makes you think Bo owes anyone a statement?...and to whom would he owe a statement? You? Me? Shatel? Perlman? The Age of Entitlement? Not really. Just Standard Operating Procedure for the highest paid state employee, a common courtesy for someone with very public job, and a smart move for anyone hoping to find employment elsewhere.

I think the post-Ohio State 2011 audio tape was the real Bo, vindictive in victory and defensive in defeat. He brought that bunker mentality to the team. It creates an incredibly strong bond with your players, but not a healthy one. And social media makes everything worse. Sometimes even HuskerBoard.com makes me wonder why I'm a fan. So I'm willing to give the players some space, and Pelini some time to issue a statement I expect to be classy. Either honestly classy, or I'm-Job-Hunting-Now classy. We're already 72 hours into the Not Bo Pelini Era. I think it's going okay.

Wait. We've been reading about Eichorst having his ducks in a row and the quiet confidence of a man ready to announce a popular choice within hours. Now the headlines reads "Eichorst has his eye on Bret Bielema?" If the Prom is this weekend, you want your date and corsage already in hand.

In the "getting ahead of ourselves" sweepstakes, this thread wins first place!

We're entering the crucial "let it go" period, Polo. I believe your opinions on Bo have been logged elsewhere.

Source? Opinion. I'm sure no coach likes the precedent of firing coaches who win 9 games for 7 consecutive seasons, and that's what they'll say when the micophone is on. When the micophone is off, I'm betting the coaches can't believe how easy it was to out-coach Bo Pelini. At least in those nationally broadcast games that everyone was watching. No sources. Just an opinion. Based on reading between the lines.

So Harbaugh to Nebraska and Scott Frost to Michigan?

I think the bigger problem is that all this unfolded at Scott Frost's apartment in front of Scott Frost, and he appeared to let his new girlfriend get the sh#t beat out of her without intervening.

That bucket is red and full of cash. I'm taking it as an omen.

The "national media" doesn't speak with one voice. It's a bunch of different guys with different opinions. Sometimes they change their minds and/or contradict themselves. Pretty much like this board.

Michigan fans are shocked the Pelini announcement was made before the Hoke announcement. But it's coming.

The problem with Nebraska's brand of football has had little to do with coordinators and position coaches. It's the mental state the team brings to the game, especially the games that matter. That's on the head coach at every other University. The notion that Bo just needed to cut loose the key staff members he hired kinda misses the whole point of head coaching. I was actually excited for this, Bo Pelini's 7th season. The prospect of Bo Pelini's 8th season was the most depressing in my many years as a Husker fan. I honestly prefer the anarchy of the unknown at this point.

I don't know the reporter Eric Olson's history, but this was how the AP wrote the story. Their job is to report it straight down the middle, having researched both sides of the story. This account seems extremely fair, and does not seem to begrudge the fanbase or University for moving on, nor does it unfarily depict Pelini's tenure. This is what it is. LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Bo Pelini was fired as Nebraska's football coach on Sunday after a seven-year stint marked by an inability to restore the program to national prominence and too many embarrassing defeats. Pelini extended his streak of winning at least nine games every season with a 37-34 overtime win at Iowa on Friday but he never won a conference championship and his teams lost four games in every season he completed. Pelini was 66-27 and led the Cornhuskers to three league championship games in the Big 12 and Big Ten. "Earlier this morning I informed Coach Bo Pelini of our decision to move forward in a new direction," athletic director Shawn Eichorst said in a statement. "Coach Pelini served our University admirably for seven years and led our football program's transition to the Big Ten Conference." Eichorst will hold an afternoon news conference. Asked for comment, Pelini wrote in a text to The Associated Press, "I'm good. Thanks for asking!" Quarterback Tommy Armstrong Jr. tweeted, "Biggest mistake you ever made.... Bo was the best coach I've ever had and I'll always appreciate the things you taught me." Associate head coach Barney Cotton, a Nebraska alum, will be the interim head coach for the Cornhuskers' bowl game. Pelini was under contract through February 2019. The university will owe him a settlement of about $7.5 million, which can be reduced by a certain amount once he lands another job. View gallery FILE - In a Monday, Nov. 24, 2014 file photo, Nebraska NCAA college football head coach Bo Pelini sp … Pelini brought the Huskers out of the depths of the failed four-year Bill Callahan experiment that ended in 2007, his four-losses-a-year habit and frequent bad losses on the national stage wore on a fan base that has filled Memorial Stadium for every home game since 1962. Those fans have been conditioned to expect excellence. Nebraska ranks fourth in all-time victories and has won five national championships, including three in the four years before Tom Osborne retired as coach after the 1997 season. The dominant run of success in the mid-1990s has been an albatross for the coaches who followed — first Frank Solich and then Callahan and Pelini. Bad losses started to haunt Pelini after Nebraska moved to the Big Ten, and they became the program's identity. There was the 70-31 beatdown by unranked Wisconsin in the 2012 conference championship game, and last year there were one-sided losses to UCLA, Minnesota and Iowa. Pelini's undoing might have been the 59-24 loss at Wisconsin on Nov. 15 when Melvin Gordon ran for a then-FBS record 408 yards. The next week the Huskers squandered a 14-point halftime lead at home while losing 28-24 to then-unranked Minnesota. Nebraska, as a ranked team, lost seven games by 17 or more points since 2011. No other ranked team has lost so many games so lopsidedly over that span, according to STATS. "I fully support Shawn's decision to make a change in the leadership of our football program, and wish Bo and his family all of the best," chancellor Harvey Perlman said. "I am confident that Shawn will find the best coach, teacher and fit for this university and for our football program." Pelini, criticized for a defensive scheme that couldn't seem to stop the run, also drew detractors for his volatile temper. He also was reprimanded by Perlman for sideline meltdowns where he ripped into officials and quarterback Taylor Martinez during a loss at Texas A&M in 2010. After cameras in 2012 captured a couple of Pelini tongue-lashings, Perlman said the coach was a "victim of his reputation" and that "within reason (fans) have to accept him for who he is." Last year, though, Perlman and Eichorst had to put out a fire after the website Deadspin released audio of Pelini's profanity-laced tirade against what he called fair-weather fans and two newspaper writers. Pelini had initially endeared himself to Nebraska fans when he served as Solich's defensive coordinator in 2003. Pelini was interim head coach after Solich was fired in 2003 after going 9-3 in the regular season, and he was in charge for the Huskers' Alamo Bowl victory over Michigan State. As he walked off the field in San Antonio, Husker fans chanted, "We want Bo!" Callahan was hired instead, and Pelini took defensive coordinator jobs at Oklahoma and LSU, winning the 2007 national title with the Tigers. Osborne, as athletic director, picked Pelini to replace Callahan, saying the program needed an immediate defensive fix. After the Huskers shut out Arizona 33-0 in the 2009 Holiday Bowl, Pelini famously shouted, "Nebraska's back and we're here to stay." Pelini's proclamation proved premature.

I think we really need to step back and appreciate how much of this Bo Pelini brought upon himself. I came up with 88%.

Here's something I learned shortly before the game: when you venture off HuskerBoard, you find a lot more support for Bo Pelini: Bleacher Report informal poll, 11/24/14 Should Bo Pelini keep his job? Yes. 50.5% No. 49.5% Total votes: 2,175

This is so not true on so many levels.

Bo Pelini's Husker career condensed into 60 minutes of football. • Erratic, mistake-prone execution by offense, defense and special teams, all out-of-sync at the same time. • Flashes of brilliance to confirm that the talent is there, sparking an almost cruel flicker of hope. • Somehow doing just enough to beat a team you're expected to beat, and wrapping up a 9 win season.

This past month the defense has not kept up its side of the bargain, either. That was indeed a 12 play, 80 yard drive with the game on the line against Minnesota, ending with the ball in the hands of one of your most exciting gamebreakers at the goal line. Tim Beck did not call for Peirson-El to run out of bounds or get the ball stripped. It was a nice pass by Tommy. That left a minute and half with three time-outs and Minnesota pinned inside the 10. A defensive stand gets the ball back inside the 50 with a full minute for the offense to work. Everyone in the stadium knows Minnesota is going to run three plays into the line. And the Nebraska defense couldn't stop them. Offensive changes? Great. Defensive changes? Mandatory.

I thought that as I typed, but to see it in writing.........damn we've fallen. A lot. Bo can't stay. He's pissed on enough things that made Nebraska great. It's sickening enough we're paying him to do it. I'm going to put you down in the "Anti-Bo Pelini" camp.

Agree. And that is a problem. Beck has often seemed like he's auditioning for someone else. Can't go there, my friend. You can only declare and impose your will against a weaker opponent. Which we do a few times a year. The "take what they give us" strategy is practiced game by game, quarter by quarter, play by play by virtually every coach and coordinator out there. It's not a weakness. It's just football. Or any sport, really.

Or when he was killing between the tackles and we go for the sweep......Pure beck.....Like the 2nd and 1...... We kill it between the tackles. Except when we don't. The jet sweep is stupid. Except when it works. When you get five yards on one carry, you'll get five yards on the next carry. Duh! The guy who wasn't in the game would always have made the better play, because you can't prove otherwise. Passing the ball when a defense is anticipating the run makes absolutely no sense, except to people who play football. "Multiple" is an idiotic concept that's utilized by most teams in the Top 10. You make a good statement but I would say that if you looked at the "idiotic" concept of "multiple" with the top 10 teams and Nebraska, there is a stark difference between the flow of play calling for them and what Beck does. More to the point, the flow worked perfectly well against lesser teams, and the multiple came in handy when those teams decided to go all-in stopping Ameer. Hard to remember, but we were recently among the top rushing, scoring and third down conversion offenses in the country. This same team also notched the highest total offense in a single game in Big 10 history. The flow goes to hell when we match up against stronger, faster defenses. Not surprisingly, I suppose, but usually more of an indictment of our offensive line than the actual play being called. Also, these same offensive players get the same yips at the same time as the defense and special teams. They aren't mentally tough under big game pressure. When your best player coughs up the ball three times on a play he's made a thousand times, the yips are screwing up far more flow than the playcalling. As head coach, these big game yips are on Bo Pelini. To think a cure is as simple as handing it to Ameer more, or less, or as obvious as swapping Cross for Abdullah, or committing to the I-formation, or diamond formation, or abandoning the zone read, or letting Armstrong zone read audible more, or checking down to that safety screen (it's always there!) or letting Ryker Fife start just means we have as many sure-fire no-brainer "multiple" solutions as any armchair OC. When I watch the elite NCAA teams play -- and most NFL teams for that matter -- I see teams throwing on first down. Or three downs in a row. I see their running games rip it up for a quarter, then the offense go "pass happy" for a quarter. Depending on what the defense gives them. I see them rotate quarterbacks and sit star running backs. I see multiple schemes and formations. I see bread and butter plays that work and bread and butter plays that get sniffed out and shut down. I see elite teams that walk all over cupcakes and struggle against peers. Virtually every game these days I see a team inside the 10 yard line and an OC who calls a timing fade route in the end zone rather than trust the run game. Sometimes I see a quarterback like Marcus Mariota or Tom Brady and go "oh yeah. That helps." Watch match ups of Top 10 teams and you rarely see four quarters of offensive flow. You see good defenses making adjustments, a of lot of three and outs and punts, and plenty of slugfests decided by a singular fourth quarter offensive drives. You see games won in the trenches by huge, highly recruited linemen. Nebraska has problems right now. Offensive playcalling is not at the top of my list.

We can all act appalled, but we've been standing at that edge of that abyss for a couple weeks now. Nobody going to answer Post #73?

Or when he was killing between the tackles and we go for the sweep......Pure beck.....Like the 2nd and 1...... We kill it between the tackles. Except when we don't. The jet sweep is stupid. Except when it works. When you get five yards on one carry, you'll get five yards on the next carry. Duh! The guy who wasn't in the game would always have made the better play, because you can't prove otherwise. Passing the ball when a defense is anticipating the run makes absolutely no sense, except to people who play football. "Multiple" is an idiotic concept that's utilized by most teams in the Top 10.

This doesn't read like trolling to me. The vast majority of us will root for Nebraska to beat Iowa this week. Wouldn't dream of rooting for a beatdown from Iowa to ensure Pelini's departure. Please! Except that we will have spent much of the previous week writing posts that went right to the edge of that cliff. Some are also suggesting that a Husker beatdown of Iowa would earn Bo Pelini his eigth season. In the spirit of honesty, which scenario do you prefer? (I prefer a third scenario, too, but just play along)